MILITARY: Hunter continues press for more Medal of Honor recipients

Rep. Duncan Hunter wants the Pentagon to review approximately
900 Silver Star and Service Cross awards bestowed to troops for
courageous acts in Iraq and Afghanistan to see if any should be
elevated to the Medal of Honor.

Hunter, R-El Cajon, wrote Defense Secretary Leon Panetta this
month, saying he believes there are more troops who deserve the
Medal of Honor besides the 10 who have received it since 2001.

A former Marine who served two combat tours in Iraq and one in
Afghanistan, Hunter has been pressing the Defense Department to
recognize more individuals with the Medal of Honor since he took
office in January 2009.

"There is no upside to not recognizing valor on the
battlefield," Hunter said during a telephone interview last week.
"There are still hellacious firefights that take place and all
kinds of acts comparable to actions in World War II and Korea that
resulted in the Medal of Honor."

In his letter to Panetta, Hunter noted that it was only recently
that the first living Medal of Honor recipient was named. Seven of
the 10 recipients since the wars began in Afghanistan and in Iraq
were killed in the incidents for which they were honored.

Hunter specifically cited four cases in which he believes the
Defense Department should undertake a thorough review and consider
upgrading the awards to the Medal of Honor.

One of the four is the case of Marine Corps Sgt. Rafael Peralta
of San Diego, who was killed after using his body to shield fellow
Marines from a grenade in Iraq in 2004.

Despite eyewitness testimony from troops who said Peralta's act
was deliberate, a scientific panel set up by the Defense Department
concluded that because he had been shot in the head, it could not
determine that what he did was voluntary. He was instead awarded
the Navy Cross.

That act and similar ones are "consistent with the history of
the Medal of Honor and stand a good chance of being upgraded
through a formal review process," Hunter said.

The two-term lawmaker who also sits on the
House Armed
Services Committee
said he remains convinced that defense
officials under President George W. Bush had a view of the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan that suggested high-tech weaponry and current
battlefield tactics did not give rise to the kinds of heroism
associated with the Medal of Honor.

"This was a point of frustration for me and others who
categorically disagreed with the notion that warfare somehow
changed and those who were taking and holding ground from the enemy
and often engaged in close-quarter combat were in some way
ineligible for the nation's highest military award for valor," he
wrote.

Hunter said he believes battlefield commanders have been opting
to nominate troops for the Service Cross or Silver Star rather than
the Medal of Honor because they are relatively confident those
would be approved.